[JSOT88 (2000) 101-121] GUARDING THE PARENTS ' HONOUR-DEUTERONOMY 21.18-21*

The law of the unruly son (Deut. 21.18-21) is certainly one of the more puzzling texts in the book of Deuteronomy, if not in the Old Testament as a whole. The Hebrew Bible never mentions the practice of such a law and the practice strikes one as barbaric, for it does not seem to fit the general Old Testament perception of parents as loving and caring persons.1 In this article I hope to show, however, that it was clearly a normal procedure for parents in antiquity to discipline their children in a way that may look severe by modem standards. It seems appropriate first to clarify problematic linguistic and gram-matical issues, before turning to the relationship of Deut. 21.18-21 to the fifth commandment. It wiII then be argued that the law is a specific * I would like to thank Professor J. Blenkinsopp (Notre Dame), Professor J. Barton and Dr J. Day (Oxford) for their critical and helpful remarks and Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz-Stiftung for their ongoing support of my work. 1. Nevertheless the law seems to serve as a Vorlage for a couple of modem laws, defining 'juvenile deliquency'. Thus we read in §712 of the New York State Family COllrt Act: 'A "person in need of supervision", means a male less that six-teen years old of age and a female less than eighteen years of age who does not attend school...or who is incorrigible, ungovernable or habitually disobedient and beyond the lawful control of a parent or other lawful authority'. The State of Cali-fornia is even more harsh in its judgment of unruly children and states in §61O of the Welfare and Institlltions Code: 'Any person under the age of 18 years who per-sistently or habitually refuses to obey the reasonable and proper orders or directions of his parents, guardian custodian or school authorities... ' The law moves on to stress especially the dangers of leading an idle, dissolute and imrnorallife (quote